A Woman's Journey With Rare Disease

Heartbeat: First Two Episodes

I’ll try not to give any spoilers about this series since it’s new. I just do get excited anytime I see that they try to bring attention to transplant. Whether it’s based on surgery or another storyline. I think it’s important, however; to point out inaccuracies, there always seems something to take issue with.

There was only one major gripe I had with the first (pilot) episode, & that was the insinuation that heavy hitting hospital donors or people with money get automatically moved ahead in the process. That’s not true, but it makes for good TV drama, right?

Except when you’re attempting to be being fairly faithful to the life & times of a transplant surgeon. The process should be researched for context & background & accurate writing.

They didn’t talk much about the heart transplant process & criteria which I get because it’s a character based drama on the surgeon.

The only way that scenario would happen is if that person was higher up on the list than Alex’s patient. Someone doesn’t just automatically swoop in & get to buy a heart for themselves, no matter who they are celebrity or big donor or not. It perpetuates a common & dangerous myth. So in that aspect, I was disappointed.

In the next episode, I’m not sure how conjoined twins come into play with transplant surgery but given that she’s a surgeon, I can let that slide. They somewhat explain it, & later it makes more sense given her speciality is cardio thoracic surgery & she appears to be at a smaller center where she’s called in to do more than just transplant surgeries.

The story line with another surgeon possibly having MRSA was also good for drama but a little inaccurate, or at minimum, a bit of a stretch, according to the Mayo Clinic website.

Considering this series is from the same creators as HouseMD, I’m not surprised. I had a few gripes with that series from time-to-time taking liberties too but they were to be commended for having some rare disease story lines which most medical dramas shy away from.

Early reviews were none too kind so it remains to be seen if Heartbeat will be sticking around for long.

I don’t take much stock in that, I’ve had a few series that I’ve loved that reviewers & critics seem to hate. Some series do start off a little slow then pick up after a few episodes. This series seems like one.